A strange scientist dies suddenly and his will is read ridiculously quickly in his old dark house on a stormy night. attending the reading, or just hanging around nearby, are the dead manās odd lawyer (Sidney Bracy), his paralyzed and very suspicious brother (Sheldon Lewis), his two plotting servants (Martha Mattox, Mischa Auer), his constantly fainting and screaming daughter (Vera Reynolds), her he-man fiancĆ©e (Rex Lease), and their raciest-caricature chauffeur (Willie Best). Thereās also a chimpanzee in the basement that hates the daughter and whose mate was killed by the scientist in an experiment. Of course bad things will happen.
Itās another randomly titled Old Dark House film from prolific Poverty Row director Frank R. Stayer [Tangled Destinies (1932), The Vampire Bat (1933), The Ghost Walks (1934), Condemned to Live (1935)], and we get all the expected elements: mysterious sounds, secret passageways, hands reaching out over sleeping girls, no one believing claims of being attacked, and murders. And we get an angry chimp. Two years later in House of Mystery, a killer gorilla in the house was presented in a joking way, but The Monster Walks is very serious. Well, itās very serious except for the raciest stylings of Willie Best. His āYesām masterā routine is never amusing and drags down any film he is in, but at least he has only a small role this time.
Itās that earnestness thatās the real flaw. A lot of what goes on is silly by nature, and several actors are so over-the-top in their āIām eeeevvvvilā ways that they really should be winking at the audience. Itās too goofy to be so humorless. The characters actually sit around and discuss how the chimpanzee might be making plans and using secret passageways. This isn’t realistic drama folks, and he ought to make that clear. It wants to be both horror and drama, and canāt manage either.